


Like Clockwork

by BromeliadDreams



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (I feel like there must be a more specific term for 'these characters pass in and out, Extended Metaphors, Fluff, Long-Term Relationship(s), Other, and not angsty' but damned if I can think of it, of each others lives and that's what their relationship is and that's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BromeliadDreams/pseuds/BromeliadDreams
Summary: Sometimes you meet someone who just fits.
Relationships: Celiquillithon "Cel" Sidebottom/Amelia Earhart (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 31





	Like Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> Born of the realisation that gnome lifespans in Pathfinder are *really* long and therefore Amelia and Cel could've been hanging out in America for literally decades pre-campaign. So yeah, I love them and their shared love of ridiculous machinery, and just because they've never met in canon, I don't see why that should stop me. Let's all pretend I have the faintest hint of mechanical knowledge for this fic.

Cel has lived a jigsaw puzzle life, a life made up of oddly-shaped pieces that don’t look like they ought to fit together at all. So has Amelia. And when they meet, it’s like two pieces interlock and everything _shifts_. And it becomes clear that they’re not only puzzles, but gears that mesh perfectly.

* * *

The first time they meet, Cel has taken up temporary lodgings in a Separatist camp. No one has _said_ it’s temporary, but in Cel’s experience people tend not to want a neighbour whose job involves blowing things up to stick around very long. That’s OK. Cel’s used to moving on. But in the meantime, they try to make themself useful to the rest of the camp: basic repairwork, occasional improvements to the various tools and devices people have brought to try and make a go of it out here, so far from comfortable, paternalistic, Meritocratic Europe. Sporadic stints as camp healer, at times when ‘I know how to mix potions that mostly don’t explode’ is the best qualification on offer.

So it’s not entirely a surprise when a bedraggled aviator washes up on their porch one afternoon, hands caked in blood-streaked mud, asking for the loan of an adjustable wrench.

Cel lends her the wrench, of course, but not without extracting a promise that the aviator will come to tea when she returns it. Hey, what can Cel say? Sky folk tell the best stories.

And when Amelia returns and perches on Cel’s combined workbench/kitchen table, nonchalant in her oil-stained overalls, something _thunks_ in Cel’s chest like a cogwheel dropping into place.

* * *

The next time they meet, Cel is tied to the upper branches of the tallest tree for miles, utterly absorbed in sketching the surrounding landscape. The faint _put-put_ of an approaching engine barely registers, and it’s not until Amelia is done lashing a mooring line to the branch below them that they even notice that their tree now contains a gnome in flying leathers and a small air skiff.

“Y’know, I could lend you charts of this area if you like,” Amelia says by way of a greeting. She swings herself up til she’s sitting on a branch opposite Cel and grins at them.

“That’s not really the _point_ , you know?” Cel says. “I mean, I’d have bought the charts, if I wanted them, but then I still wouldn’t understand how they’re _made_ , right? And even you Harlequin cartographers - if you are a Harlequin now? You weren’t before, but now you have that _ring_ , and extrapolating from small data sets is one of my main skills so I’m going to go ahead and assume you are a Harlequin, but my point is, your maps are _rubbish_ if you’re not in an airship, and I need maps that’ll work whether I’m six feet above ground level or sixty or six hundred. Accounting for the parallax is the real trick, y’know? And then I thought, well, wouldn’t it be useful, if I’m going to make a map, to mark on all the areas where I usually source my reagents? And _then_ I thought, well, what about marking the good swimming spots, so I’ve had to expand the key quite a bit…”

“Can I see?” Amelia asks, and Cel appreciates that she doesn’t just try to read over Cel’s shoulder, which so many people do, even when Cel tells them it’s rude. So they show her the map, even though it’s meant to be private, and Amelia scrambles up to the air skiff and returns with her own charts so they can compare the two, and what with one thing and another, it’s almost night before either of them notice.

“Want a lift?” Amelia asks. “It’s gonna do funny things to the balance, having two of us aboard, but I get the feeling you’ll be OK with that.”

Cel is.

* * *

They meet a few more times under similar circumstances. Eventually, Cel grows suspicious enough to run the numbers on typical Harlequin trade routes vs the size of the continent in general, and is obscurely pleased to discover that the odds of Amelia ‘just happening’ to bump into them on any given flight are vanishingly small.

They start to keep a supply of Amelia’s preferred type of tea around.

Just in case.

* * *

Cel and cities do not get on well together. Even in what city folk call the middle of nowhere, there’s so much to see and hear and think about that sometimes it can be overwhelming, and in cities, there’s even more, and every cry and clatter and flash of bright clothing makes Cel start, and it’s _all. too. much._

But sometimes you need components that are only available in the magical markets of Prague, so you put on the clothes you bought last time you were in Europe and you choose a hat that hides your ears and you stumble through your handful of clumsy Czech phrases until your brain hurts and your eyes ache.

Cel doesn’t even realise they recognise the person in front of them until they hear their own name, and even then, their eyes won’t quite focus on Amelia’s face.

“You want to come for tea?” Amelia asks, and when Cel looks at her blankly, she bites her lip and holds out a hand. Wordlessly, Cel takes it and lets themself be led through a torrent of noise and colours to the muted metal sanctuary of Amelia’s airship.

It’s a much bigger vessel than the air skiff, and once Cel has recovered themself enough to take an interest in their surroundings, Amelia takes them on a tour.

In the engine room, Amelia pauses. “Got a problem I wouldn’t mind you taking a look at, if you’ve got time?” she says. Her eyes are sparkling, and Cel finds themself grinning back. Any problem Amelia can’t solve on her own is sure to be interesting.

It’s a question of fuel efficiency, and look, neither of them _planned_ to spend the evening taking apart the starboard engine, but sometimes you just get started on a project and the next steps spool themselves out in front of you, and before you know it, it’s past midnight and the air is heavy with the scent of engine oil, and every time you pass your coworker a tool, you accidentally brush her hand, and…

And something in Cel’s chest feels tight like a wound mainspring. Amelia finishes bolting a panel into place with a noise of satisfaction and looks down from her laddertop perch. “I think that’s as much as we can do for tonight. I’d like to do the same on the other engine, but it’ll still be there in the morning. Do you…” she hesitates. The spanner she’s holding beats out a nervous rhythm against her leg. “Do you want to stay here, or…? Of course, you’ve probably got your own place, I don’t want to…”

“I’ll stay,” Cel blurts out. “I mean, it’s just more efficient, you know? Saves me trekking all the way across the city and back, and you saw today, I’m really not at my best in crowds, so we’d probably lose _more_ time to that. And actually, I’ve never slept on an airship? So that would be cool - do you have hammocks? Can I try a hammock? I’ve been thinking of making one - for when I’m out on my own, you know? Except that then you need to have trees, which is hard to guarantee, so maybe I ought to make one with telescopic legs… Do you have hammocks with telescopic legs? Oh and also, while I’m asking questions, kinda needed a run up to this one, but would you mind if I kissed you? Or you could kiss me, that’d be equally good, although it could be kinda fun to do some sort of controlled comparis-- Mmf!”

Cel has read books that describe a lover’s kisses as tasting of tobacco and roses and fairy dewdrops and any number of unlikely things, and has never quite understood the appeal. Kissing Amelia, it turns out that any roses are thoroughly drowned out by the scent of engine oil, and it’s _wonderful_. One of Amelia’s hands is tangled in the front of Cel’s shirt; the other is still anchoring her to the ladder at her back, so that she arabesques out like a gymnast. Cel gets briefly distracted wondering what their own hands ought to be doing, before finding that, left to their own devices, they settle quite naturally at Amelia’s waist, half-supporting her suspended flight.

Eventually, Amelia pulls back and runs a hand through her hair. She’s dusty and grease-smeared and her eyes are bright.

“I think we’ll have time to conduct a thorough experiment,” she says, and in Cel’s heart, a balance wheel they hadn’t known was off swings back to centre.

* * *

It’s not all kissing in engine rooms, although that’s certainly a recurring motif. (Hey, look, when Amelia’s enthusing about how fast she can go with the new rotors Cel helped fit, what’s Cel meant to do, _not_ kiss her? And when she lets Cel drive the ship? And when the two of them sit up late arguing the merits of various flight mechanics?)

The years pass and Amelia’s work for the Harlequins takes her further away and for longer stretches of time. Cel’s not sure they’ll ever fully understand the Harlequins’ goals, but they know they matter to Amelia, so each time they say goodbye without resentment.

Cel travels too. Even the non-Meritocratic corners of the world are vast, and full of things to discover and people to learn from.

There are nights when Cel hears the rumble of an airship engine in the distance and puts the kettle on with a smile. There are days when they arrive at a remote anchorage to see the gleaming brass lines of Amelia’s ship already in dock.

Their lives swing them out on long, eccentric orbits, neither certain of the apogee. But every time they know that when they finally meet again, they’ll fit together with the same precision as that first time, two cogs driving a shared mechanism.


End file.
